& she
replies / likewise / beneath th sightless eyes
‘what have you done/lover
what have you done to me?’
some compromise
some crutch of voiceless logic may spring up
for this sad pair
who learned to take / & not to care
& want too much / from out ‘ thin air ’
they’re walking th wire
—walking th wire—
on one hand looms th fell abyss
on th other this crass world’s
synthesis
& in between /
th fire
its so very apt / then
that there should come th sound of seagulls
through th bright morning
& he’s lying back there thinking
‘what sad bells & death knocks their long throats are!’
its so very apt/then
that th poppies in th vase are knocking too
& she’s lying back there thinking
‘those grave & oval blooms / how sad
& dry
they knock together like ‘serious heads’
& close & die
& close & die.’
now
while her soft mouth brushes his own
& his hand dusts over her golden thigh
& th sun steadily rises over roofs
& chimneypots
like a gong of death
in th pewter sky …
she
fabricates hr little / lost moan / & he
groans to hear it
&
out from th cage of hr body
& his own
lost & lovely/on memories blown
on these
&
on dreams alone …
insubstantial lovebirds fly
& the gulls cry
& the gulls cry.
(1972)
James K. Baxter, from Jerusalem Sonnets
Poems for Colin Durning
1
The small grey cloudy louse that nests in my beard
Is not, as some have called it, ‘a pearl of God’—
No, it is a fiery tormentor
Waking me at two a.m.
Or thereabouts, when the lights are still on
In the houses in the pa, to go across thick grass
Wet with rain, feet cold, to kneel
For an hour or two in front of the red flickering
Tabernacle light—what He sees inside
My meandering mind I can only guess—
A madman, a nobody, a raconteur
Whom He can joke with—‘Lord,’ I ask Him,
‘Do You or don’t You expect me to put up with lice?’
His silent laugh still shakes the hills at dawn.
2
The bees that have been hiving above the church porch
Are some of them killed by the rain—
I see their dark bodies on the step
As I go in—but later on I hear
Plenty of them singing with what seems a virile joy
In the apple tree whose reddish blossoms fall
At the centre of the paddock—there’s an old springcart,
Or at least two wheels and the shafts, upended
Below the tree—Elijah’s chariot it could be, Colin,
Because my mind takes fire a little there
Thinking of the woman who is like a tree
Whom I need not name—clumsily gripping my beads,
While the bees drum overhead and the bouncing calves look at
A leather-jacketed madman set on fire by the wind.
10
Dark night—or rather, only the stars
Somebody called ‘those watchfires in the sky’—
Too cold for me the thoughts of God—I crossed
The paddock on another errand,
And the cows were slow to move outside the gate
Where they sleep at night—nevertheless I came
As it were by accident into the church
And knelt again in front of the tabernacle,
His fortress—man, His thoughts are not cold!
I dare not say what fire burned then, burns now
Under my breastbone—but He came back with me
To my own house, and let this madman eat,
And shared my stupid prayer, and carried me up
As the mother eagle lifts her fluttering young with her wings.
11
One writes telling me I am her guiding light
And my poems her bible—on this cold morning
After mass I smoke one cigarette
And hear a magpie chatter in the paddock,
The image of Hatana—he bashes at the windows
In idiot spite, shouting—‘Pakeha! You can be
‘The country’s leading poet’—at the church I murmured, ‘Tena koe’
To the oldest woman and she replied, ‘Tena koe’—
Yet the red book is shut from which I should learn Maori
And these daft English words meander on,
How dark a light! Hatana, you have gripped me
Again by the balls; you sift and riddle my mind
On the rack of the middle world, and from my grave at length
A muddy spring of poems will gush out.
14
I had lain down for sleep, man, when He called me
To go across the wet paddock
And burgle the dark church—you see, Colin, the nuns
Bolt the side door and I unbolt it
Like a timid thief—red light, moonlight
Mix together; steps from nowhere
Thud in the porch; a bee wakes up and buzzes;
The whole empty pa and the Maori dead
Are present—there I lie down cruciform
On the cold linoleum, a violator
Of God’s decorum—and what has He to tell me?
‘More stupid than a stone, what do you know
‘Of love? Can you carry the weight of my Passion,
You old crab farmer?’ I go back home in peace.
18
Yesterday I planted garlic,
Today, sunflowers—‘the non-essentials first’
Is a good motto—but these I planted in honour of
The Archangel Michael and my earthly friend,
Illingworth, Michael also, who gave me the seeds—
And they will turn their wild pure golden discs
Outside my bedroom, following Te Ra
Who carries fire for us in His terrible wings
(Heresy, man!)—and if He wanted only
For me to live and die in this old cottage,
It would be enough, for the angels who keep
The very stars in place resemble most
These green brides of the sun, hopelessly in love with
Their Master and Maker, drunkards of the sky.
24
The kids here don’t shout out, ‘Jesus!’
Or, ‘Hullo, Moses!’ as they did in Auckland
When they saw my hair—these ones are too polite—
They call me Mr Baxter when they bring the milk;
I almost wish they didn’t; but Sister has them well trained—
And soon she wants me to give them a talk about drugs;
What should I say?—‘Children, your mothers and your fathers
Get stoned on grog; in Auckland they get stoned on pot;
‘It does no harm at all, as far as I know
From smoking it; but the big firms are unloading
‘Pep pills for slimming, tablets for sleeping,
On the unlucky world—those ones can drive you mad—
‘Money and prestige are worse drugs than morphine’—
That way I’d hit the target; but I doubt if the nuns would think it wise.
34
I read it in the Maori primer,
‘Ka timata te pupuhi o te hau’—
The wind began blowing; it blew for a century
Levelling by the musket and the law
Ten thousand meeting houses—there are two of them in the pa,
Neither one used; the mice and the spiders meet there;
And the tapu mound where the heads of chiefs were burned
Will serve perhaps one day for a golf course—yet
Their children fear te taipo,
The bush demon; on that account
They keep the lights burning all night outside their houses—
What can this pakeha fog-eater do?
Nothing; nothing! Tribe of the wind,
You can have my flesh for kai, my blood to drink.
37
Colin, you can tell my words are crippled now;
The bright coat of art He has taken away from me
And like the snail I crushed at the church door
My song is my stupidity;
The words of a homely man I cannot speak,
Home and bed He has taken away from me;
Like an old horse turned to grass I lift my head
Biting at the blossoms of the thorn tree;
Prayer of priest or nun I cannot use,
The songs of His house He has taken away from me;
As blind men meet and touch each other’s faces
So He is kind to my infirmity;
As the cross is lifted and the day goes dark
Rule over myself He has taken away from me.
(1970)
Sam Hunt, ‘Porirua Friday Night’
Acne blossoms scarlet on their cheeks,
These kids up Porirua East …
Pinned across this young girl’s breast
A name tag on a supermarket badge;
A city-sky-blue smock.
Her face unclenches like a fist.
Fourteen when I met her first
A year ago, she’s now left school,
Going with the boy
She hopes will marry her next year.
I asked her if she found it hard
Working in the store these Friday nights
When friends are on the town.
She never heard:
But went on, rather, talking of
The house her man had put
A first deposit on
And what it’s like to be in love.
(1972)
Earthly
Ian Wedde, from Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos
2 it’s time
A beautiful evening, early summer.
I’m walking from the hospital. His head
was a bright nebula
a firmament
swimming in the vulva’s lens . . . the colour
of stars/ ‘Terraces the colour of stars …’
I gazed through my tears.
The gifts of the dead
crown the heads of the newborn She said
‘It’s time’ & now I have a son time for
naming the given
the camellia
which is casting this hoar of petals (stars?)
on the grass … all winter the wind kept from
the south, driving eyes & heart to shelter.
Then came morning when she said ‘It’s time, it’s
time!’ time’s
careless nebula of blossom/
3 paradiso terrestre
The room fills up with smoke. Their faces are
imprecise with the imprecision of
their perfect intentions, all that loving
menagerie which the old man’s left for
good & which the newborn entered in a
rage & through which he now sleeps: a profound
indifference he will lose the knack of
in spite of love or because of it more
likely … oh, I’d be glad if he became
a carpenter & built a house for my
old age: a paradiso, well … but earth-
ly anyway, straight planks above a plain
or seacoast, the trees & mountains known, high
familiar stars still bright in heaven’s hearth.
2 for Rose
9
‘If thy wife is small bend down to her &
whisper in her ear’ (Talmud)
—what shall I
whisper? that I dream it’s no use any
more trying to hide my follies. If trees &
suchlike don’t tell on me I understand
my son will & soon, too. His new blue eyes
see everything. Soon he’ll learn to see
less. O the whole great foundation is sand.
But the drought has broken today, this rain!
pecks neat holes in the world’s salty fabu-
lous diamond-backed carapace & doubt comes
out, a swampy stink of old terrapin.
What shall I say ? ‘I hid nothing from you,
but from myself. That I dream, little one,
10
by day & also by night & you are
always in the dream …’ Oh you can get no
peace, will get none from me. The flower smells so
sweet who needs the beans? We should move house there
into the middle of the bean-patch: a
green and fragrant mansion, why not! Let’s do
it all this summer & eat next year. O
let’s tear off a piece. It’s too hard & far
to any other dreamt-of paradise
& paradise is earthly anyway,
earthly & difficult & full of doubt.
I’m not good I’m not peaceful I’m not wise
but I love you. What more is there to say.
My fumbling voices clap their hands & shout.
27
Precocious spring how beautiful you are!
Let them see
who can.
Barberry puts out
fiery buds early flowers prepare to shout
cold sere hills exhale the yellow colour
of births & marriages: spring, piss, sulphur!
Io Hymen! gorse, broom, lupin, ragwort:
the tough surviving ‘noxious weeds’ hang out
their crass banners all around the harbour
where this time last year seabirds crashed into
frozen slush
when memory, a former
lover come to wish you well, left early
went home & wept alone … you never knew …
you forgot!
O these battered weeds have flowers
as delicate
& sweet
as any
31
Diesel trucks past the Scrovegni chapel
Catherine Deneuve farting onion fritters
The world’s greedy anarchy, I love it!
Hearts that break, garlic fervent in hot oil
Jittery exultation of the soul
Minds that are tough & have good appetites
Everything in love with its opposite
I love it! O how I love it! (It’s all
I’ve got
plus Carlos: a wide dreaming eye
above her breast,
a hand tangling her hair,
breath filling the room as blood does the heart.
We must amend our lives murmured Rilke
gagging on his legacy of air.
Hang on to yours Carlos it’s all you’ve got.
34 more
/that eastern light leaking from umber hills
‘pitiless’
no the war has not yet ceased
Beyond the glaring threshold the immense
appetite of the imperialist
abattoir
where the blood of Asia spills
as lightly as this spring daybreak this
new day upon these gentle hills this gorse
this lucent panorama how many miles
distant? from that? O the firmament does stream
with blood hills cringe into their own sh
adows
& darkness seems to suck like a huge boot
free of the harbour … no simulacrum
but a truthful vision of continents
sluiced together on the slaughterhouse floor
(1975)
Murray Edmond, ‘Psyche at the Beginning of Spring’
first
the light gains
the hawthorn gains.
spread out in long green strokes.
I hear her coming,
her feet rising
nearer & nearer
out of the earth.
she does not look back
she is retrieved
she comes to wake me.
oak before ash
we get a splash
ash before oak
we get a soak
soak & splash
splash & soak.
I hear her in your lines,
Robert Duncan,
that ‘step at the margin’
the green ripple across the grey scoured face
white stars on black branches
electric ends of the charged twigs
are crackling,
many small feet
are moving,
her cheeks
are burning.
The light
splashes & soaks.
I look south to the light
where you live
under the white slant of the sun
under the shadowy eaves of board
where the time is sinking
& you are hunched in your green mossy chair
remembering the surge of leg
on leg expanding as
your thighs spread over
the thrust the ache the thirst.
the colours melt.
& flood.
I stretch a leg, a finger, a voice.
The kernel of my eye undarkens.
Her hand is kneading my shoulder
like wind.
gaining. gaining.
first, the light.
now, the hawthorn.
wandering down the road this early morning
wondering about the shape & size of her new form
I come to a place where the land lowers & twists
& the road follows,
a sudden corner,
where I break on the gold flares of
Constable,
Turner & Blake,
& on her full face.
(1975)
Jan Kemp, ‘Quiet in the Eye, New Hebrides to Fiji 1974’
for Blackie and Robyn
I
Weathered sailors, secure in shelter,
fall silent as we take a feast of days with
beaujolais in woven baskets, bully beef and avocado
aboard Te Mariner, thirty foot of old boned boat,
tarred slat planks, bevelled brass compass and sun awnings
in hurricane season under tropical Capricorn.
‘To sail now is folly’—but we have other signatures:
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 90